Cobbler fell asleep yet again during class. The amount of time he has been called up by the Mage for that, was already uncountable. The classroom was dusty and the ray of light illuminated and made them so much more apparent, it was impossible for anyone to stay awake for this.
He dreamed of a better life, he saw the Vermilion Queen for the first time a week ago and he can't get her out of his mind, he wishes he was as good at stealing hearts as he was at stealing every other thing that comes to mind. He was just fifteen, and he was a self-proclaimed coward, he wouldn't dare talk to anyone who was above him in social level(not like he could talk to the Queen even if he could), although still proclaiming that he could do anything, he wasn't able to learn Magic.
First, he tried to steal the Magic of Children of Silver, but failing that he went back to Magic class and was still equally shit at that. The only thing which he successfully stole was in part of the crypt which they didn't even care for, and even that required him to sacrifice health, sleep, time, a ring finger to do so.
Now, he ponders what his next course of action should be. The knocking grew louder. And he was awakened once more, it seemed that he dreamed of his classroom. For a momentary second, he wonders if he was awoken by this particular nightmare or that knocking. He sat up straight on his creaking bed, ponder the noise for a while, decided that it won't stop any time soon, so he stood up, went over to the window and looked out; dead bodies and assorted trash littered his sight.
He brushed his fringes out of his eyes, took a clearer look out at the crack of the stone building by the front. The palace was there. Damn clear it was. Every one of them does not care for people like him. Most everyone else doesn't, his existence is abjectly meaningless to them.
Yet when the Vermilion Queen addressed the people and talked about helping the impoverished, it sounded as if she genuinely meant it, she was older than him by two years but boy was her position incomprehensibly apart from his. People with privileges. They are a wonder to look at, circumstances just grant it to them, while people like him have to make his own.
He leaned by the window and stared at the still image of the palace, pieces of its majesty scattered in the cracks of the stones. Imprinting the map again into his mind, he thinks he might just grow the balls to steal something from there, after all, that's the prime reason why he moved from the less dangerous slum to the most dangerous slum here, for a royal district they sure had more cutthroats than some regular ones.
That tapping sounds really rhythmic, might be entirely coincidence but the way it goes sounds similar to the teleportation casting of the Children of Silver. Life's so chaotic that sometimes it makes itself into sense, he thought to himself. For the sake of it still disturbing him, he decided to read further into it. See how deep the rabbit hole actually gets, he remembered the notes he kept in his drawer he made while he was in class.
Clearing his alchemy equipment from his table, he lit the candle with a matchstick and analyze the sound of the tapping. The coordinates look rather specific, it was all in the Royal District. Quite a coincidence.
It got much more specific, it was now inside the palace, and he was lost from then on. He quickly took out the map he drew out for the palace. Pinpointed it to the Queen's chamber. That's where the coordinates were heading. He bit his lips, and the tapping still continued.
The one summoning the power was not a Child of Silver, that one would have done it in almost an instant, they must have not known that there was still a guy living below where they were planning to summon. The concealing scroll erased all heat signatures from this room, render invisible to any kind of Magic, would have fetched a fair price on the market had he not gone too ambitious for this palace heist.
He thought for a while. If he can infiltrate with them, he could take a bunch of goods and get out of there before things escalate, but this tapping has been happening forever and news has not got out that the Queen has been assassinated so chances are he could still do it. But how was he supposed to contact the party involved?
He tried as hard as he could to remember the day since this tapping began, it should have been 11 days, this means that they must have failed 11 times to teleport into the palace. That suggested only two more times left before the contract with the Moon expired, he anxiously checked his watch to verify his speculations. It starts at exactly three of the night.
He lined his tools out. Earplugs. Three cans of tear gas. Two cans of smoke shells. Four cans of flashbang, two fast-acting but weak, two long-acting but strong. A pack of plastic explosives. A breathing mask with two working filters and an eye shield made of plastic. The living mercury knife. One canister of specially synthesized gas for extreme anti-magic occasions. Two syringes of fast-acting painkiller. A medical kit. Two boxes of matches. A detachable thickly-threaded shoulder cloak, half an arm-length, with a flashbang and tear gas strung on it, the pins of their detonations attached to his collar.
Before sheathing the knife to his back, he noticed the symbol marked at its edge. The inanimated carving somehow moved, he gave it little care but put it on a list of things he will investigate.
He pushed his hood forward, (it felt useless, it covered only his unremarkable brown hair, the only effective way he could use it was to disguise himself as a monk) he felt around the holes in his padded armor, too many of them, all by-product of his carelessness and inconsistency. He can't be pulling off grand heists flawlessly escaping sometimes to almost getting caught without nothing and running ten kilometers straight.
It would only be successes from now on. No more mistakes. He climbed out of the window and breath in the fresh and rotten night air of his slum, he instinctively lifted his mask up from his blood pulsing neck.
The fear and excitement felt beyond exhilarating.
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